Continuous Deployment
A software development practice where every code change that passes the automated testing phase is automatically deployed to production. There is no manual intervention in the release process.
Impact
Continuous Deployment maximizes velocity and minimizes the "inventory" of unreleased code. It requires an extremely high level of confidence in automated testing.
Weinto take
This is the Holy Grail of engineering maturity. It forces you to write perfect tests. If you are afraid to turn on Continuous Deployment, it means you don't trust your tests. Fix the tests, don't add manual gates.