All Maven unit tests are ran by default. When a test fails the project will not build. While this forces you to have a stable build of your project before deploying; it may not be ideal in some situations.

Skipping Over Failed Unit Tests

Within the in maven-surefire-plugin in your pom, specify the skipTests parameter

<plugin>
   <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
   <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
   <version>2.x.x</version>
   <configuration>
      <skipTests>true</skipTests>
   </configuration>
</plugin>

Now all tests will be skipped on the next build.