With inspiration from role-play and improvisational theater, we are developing a framework for innovation in software teams called Essence. Based on agile principles, Essence is designed for teams of developers and an onsite customer. This paper reports from teaching experiments inspired by design science, where we tried to assign differentiated roles to team members. The experiments provided valuable insights into the design of roles in Essence. These insights are used for redesigning how roles are described and conveyed in Essence.