**The Scrum Team**

* 3 x Developers
* 2 x Testers
* 1 x Automation Test Analyst

We are not a multi-functional team in that the developers don't test and the testers don't develop. I believe this is the root cause of the issue.

We currently do two-week sprints.

At the start of the sprint everyone is busy, the developers are making a start on the development work and the testers are doing their test preparation (writing test cases, etc.)

Once the testers have finished their preparation they are now waiting for the development work to be complete OR the development work is complete and the developers are waiting for feedback/bugs.

The developers get itchy feet here and start to work on items in the backlog which are outside of the current sprint. This has created a strange affect whereby we are always developing next sprints work in the current sprint. To me this doesn't feel right.

From managements point of view, they would rather the developers do work than sit at their desks doing nothing but at the same time I feel like the scrum team's goal and focus should solely be on the current sprint. I wish our team was multi-functional but unfortunately it isn't achievable. The testers don't have the necessary skills to do development work and the majority of developers have the opinion that testing is beneath them.

Is this considered a problem in scrum?
Is there a solution to this?
Does scrum only work with multifunctional teams?

I'd like to know other peoples experiences with this if possible :)