I'm not sure I agree -- having an alternate process for deployments in emergency scenarios is just asking for all kinds of trouble. It should be a well oiled ma

I'm not sure I agree -- having an alternate process for deployments in emergency scenarios is just asking for all kinds of trouble. It should be a well oiled machine that is consistent. If running the tests is part of the process, it should always be part of the process, otherwise you introduce additional complexity in trying to understand the potential outcomes of the system in unique scenarios. If the tests are slow that they gunk up the works, then the tests need to be fixed and the process changed. (Perhaps a large suite which runs nightly over less critical code, and a tight suite for mission critical code that runs pre-deploy.)