Emergency Change
A change that must be introduced as soon as possible. This is usually to resolve a major incident or implement a security patch. The process for assessment and authorization is expedited.
Impact
Emergency changes carry higher risk because they bypass normal testing rigor. Frequent emergency changes are a symptom of instability or poor planning.
Weinto take
An "Emergency" process should still be automated. Even at 3 AM, a fix should pass the automated test suite before hitting production. We define "Emergency" simply as "skipping the queue," not "skipping the tests." Safety is never optional.