A chief programmer team was the concept of a programming team organized in a star around a "chief" role, granted to the software engineer who understood the system's intentions the best. Other team members got supporting roles.[1]
The concept was similar to that of a surgical team in which a surgeon who performs the operation is supported by medical staff such as an anaesthetist and nurses.[1] Fred Brooks describes the concept in detail in The Mythical Man-Month,[2] as proposed by Harlan Mills[3] in 1971.