Regarding the use of CRC cards in the industry, there is the following report on using CRC for Xtreme Programming:

http://www.agilemodeling.com/artifacts/crcModel.htm

About the use of CRC cards at IBM, see:

https://sites.google.com/a/etechsuccess.com/etechsuccess/home/software-development-methods/chapter-four---the-ibm-years

Check Wikipedia for more information on CRC cards.