Fault Tree Analysis in Projects

Fault tree analysis (FTA) is defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a "technique for identifying and analysing factors that can contribute to a specified undesired event".[citation]

FTA has its wide range of application in many fields of engineering such as systems engineering, reliability engineering, and safety engineering. It also serves as an applicable tool for identifying the causes of undesired events in projects.[citation] Undesired events in projects can for instance be exceeding the budget, time delays, lack of team synergy, or any other events that have a negative effect on the project. This is referred to as the top event.

The purpose of FTA is to give both a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the factors that can trigger the undesired top event. A qualitative analysis shows via a graphical representation of the tree the top event that is to be analysed, along with the pathway of all the intermediate and basic events that lead up to the top event. A quantitative analysis shows the probability of a top event being triggered by the input probabilities of the basic events that lead up to the undesired event. The quantitative analysis is calculated through Boolean algebra.[citation]