When forming a game development team for the first time, you should keep in mind that there isn't a single, correct way to do this. There are many different kinds of teams, all with different talents. Some teams may have a lot of members for each of the roles, while others may just be one or two people sharing all the tasks.
Commonly, development teams tend to have a couple of artists and programmers in them. Artists handle the visual side of the game, while the programmers focus on the technical areas. If there are multiple people in each of these roles, they tend to handle a different part of the game. If one artist is focusing on characters, the others might focus completely on environments or effects, for example.
In smaller projects, it's generally not a good idea to have multiple people working on the same thing. Having two programmers working on the main character, for example, can lead to conflicts in their code, especially if the programmers haven't worked together on any previous project.
There should always be someone focusing on delivering the original vision of the game in the team. What the game is about and how it is going to work are both questions in need of an answer. Teams often have a separate designer that takes care of this, but in extremely small teams a designer may also be one of the artists or programmers.
In larger teams, if there are multiple designers, they usually tend to share their responsibilities just like artists and programmers. There might be a single lead designer in charge of the original vision and separate ones that handle other areas like the level design or narrative design.
Usually, it's good to have a person who is mainly responsible for the project itself. This is usually covered by a producer or a team lead, someone who is focusing on most of the project management. The producer shouldn’t be as involved with content creation as the other members of the team in order to have a more neutral perspective of the whole project.
Being passionate about your work is a good thing, but the person in charge of project management shouldn't let their own biases and emotions affect the creative side of the development too radically.
Having sounds and music in your game is also something that you'll most likely need (which should not come as a surprise). Coming across someone who has talent with both, can be a bit tricky but definitely worthwhile in the long run.
As good sound and music can lift up your game to a completely different level, you shouldn't underestimate how big of a difference the audio can make.
In the following video, you'll learn some tips that can help you build an effective development team of your own. Some of these roles may be familiar to you already, while others may be a bit more surprising. After watching the video, complete the exercise below.