We often spend a lot of time planning for the perfect deployment process and rolling back strategies, but sometimes we forget that despite the best plans that we have, we still need to address urgent post deployment fixes when rolling back is not an option. Hotfixes may not always be due to critical bug fixes, they can also arise from last minute client commitments or regulatory requirements. I have observed several instances where we had to push back on these changes to the next release cycle resulting in unhappy clients simply because we do not have a process in place to handle hotfixes. You may ask then, why don’t we keep a Release Branch or Hotfix Branch in our development practice? The answer is not always that simple and obvious depending on your Agile practices and build process.