Conclusion

Our experience has shown that Gold Cards have increased innovation, improved efficiency, and provided greater recognition and motivation for developers.

By setting aside time for legitimate investigations, Gold Cards have addressed the problem of developers feeling constrained to think only about current tasks. They have allowed for blue-sky experiments that have led to genuine business opportunities and new ideas that have inspired developers and users alike. These investigations have also enabled us to estimate new development tasks more accurately.

Furthermore, tools created in Gold Card time have improved the efficiency of the development process and addressed those issues that were most annoying to developers.

Finally, developers have enjoyed the time they've spent working on things that they have chosen, without feeling as if they were cheating on the team or detracting from the completion of the customer's stories.