A common way to "brainstorm" is to compare the problem you are working on to some other completely unrelated item. We were doing some brainstorming at work and I came up with this as a way to illustrate this approach.
Gilligans Island
-- How do they get such great battery life on their portable radio?
-- The Professor does some great engineering, but Gilligan always
manages to mess it up in the implementation.
-- Sophisticated, modern appliances get kludged together out of
sand and cellulose.
-- You think the installation is going to be a three-hour cruise around
Hawaii, but you end up marooned on a desert island instead.
-- Who's driving the industry? Is it the rich guy? The smart engineer?
The movie industry? Or are these folks really all just marooned
together without the slightest idea of how it happened?
Bewitched
-- There's a great deal of magic involved, but everyone tries to deny it.
-- Who is stranger? The folks with the magic, or the advertising
executives?
-- Slavish devotion to career and conformity seems kind of weird with all
this magic floating around.
I Dream of Jeanie
-- It is rocket science, after all.
Patty Duke Show
-- They look compatible, but they really aren't.
Brady Bunch
-- Mergers in the computer industry can be very funny, too.
McHales Navy
-- Which is worse: Upper management, or the threat of Japanese competition?