FMEA¶

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is a structured approach to discovering potential failures that may exist within the design of a product or process. Failure modes are the ways in which a process can fail. Effects are the ways that these failures can lead to waste, defects, or harmful outcomes for the customer.

This link has a brief tutorial on FMEA: http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/process-analysis-tools/overview/fmea.html
There are a large HUGE number of other resources available on the web.