Bartering Design Skills

What comes first - the chicken or the egg - or who should start the game forming and designing process - a programmer - with a game concept, a writer with a story concept or a visual artist - animator or 2D artist to set the tone and let the others be inspired by their tone?

I suppose that within big companies - it would be a team effort with brainstorming, meetings, rush boards and so on, and with much more assets available, this question probably never even would arise.
This question is much more viable and relevent in the Indie game design scene, and not only that, probably among the younger designers it is a bigger problem.
Unless you have a team working from start together, it would be hard to manage.

People with good skills cost lots of money, especially in the arts, and for indie designers that could be a problem. Rubes from the Monks Brew discusses this at length in this post, branching of to other things in the end, but what I am interested in is if there is anyone that knows of bartering systems between designers artists and other professionals involved in the process - each with his own project, but helping out others or working for others in exchange for the same on their own projects.
Its seems a bit far fetched but in reality it could solve a lot of problems.