Much of coaching is listening, and the questions that follow from it. This live online session is about listening deeply and asking questions that open thinking.

IC-LSTN is a Specialised Credential from ICA. You take it in a single four-hour live session, in any order alongside the other Specialised Credentials, and at your own pace.

It is also one of the three Specialised Credentials in our Coaching Skills for Impact programme, which you can take together with the Core.

How Does This Fit into the ICA Coaching Certification (ICP-COA)?

IC-LSTN is a Specialised Credential. ICP-COA is built from the Core Credential, Coaching (IC-COAC), plus any two of the three Specialised Credentials, taken in any order: Coaching Ethics and Boundaries (IC-CHEB), Coaching Presence and Stance (IC-CHPS) and Listening and Inquiry (IC-LSTN). This session earns IC-LSTN.

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Take the Full Programme: Coaching Skills for Impact

Listening and Inquiry (IC-LSTN) is one part of Coaching Skills for Impact, our online coaching programme launching in April 2027. The programme gives you the whole route in one place: the Core Credential and all three Specialised Credentials, the Integration session, 10 hours of mentor coaching (3 one-to-one sessions and 7 group sessions), peer practice dojos, the ICA Certified Professional: Coaching certification (ICP-COA) and the programme certificate. Get £600 worth of training included. The Core Credential, the three Specialised Credentials and the Integration session are all part of the programme price. The rest of your investment pays for the mentor coaching, the programme certificate from an ICF accredited provider and the support around you. You do not have to pick credentials one at a time. Choose the programme and you have a mentor coach alongside you all the way, with the self-paced work open as soon as you sign up. Programme price: £2,000 + VAT  |  €2,400  |  $2,650 USD See the Coaching Skills for Impact programme

Listening and Inquiry, Taken at Your Own Pace

Take this session whenever it suits you in your route to ICP-COA. Specialised Credentials can be taken in any order, so you can start here or come to it later.

What Will You Receive?

Included: A Free 30-Minute Coaching Session After the Class

Every booking includes a free 30-minute one-on-one session with your trainer, scheduled after the class when you need it most. Talk through a real situation where you want to use what you practised. Get tailored feedback on how you are applying the skills. Build confidence before your next coaching conversation. The full Coaching Skills for Impact programme goes further, with three one-to-one mentoring sessions and seven group sessions.

How Does the Listening and Inquiry Session Work?

Who Is This For?

This session is for anyone who wants to listen better and ask better questions, in coaching and beyond.

Anyone building coaching skills. You want to listen more deeply and ask questions that open thinking.

Agile coaches, Scrum Masters and team leads. You want better conversations with teams and stakeholders.

Managers and leaders. You want to draw out the thinking of the people you work with.

What Does the IC-LSTN Credential Cover?

In this session you work on these ICA learning outcomes:

What Deep Listening Actually Requires
In our class: you identify your own listening filters and how they shape what you notice or miss.

The Architecture of Purposeful Questions
In our class: you analyse a conversation for the question types used, their impact and a more purposeful question.

Balancing Listening and Inquiry
In our class: you design a listening and inquiry approach for a professional scenario, including one point where advocating a position would be better than continuing to ask.

Reflective Listening and Inquiry Practice
In our class: you practise a listening and inquiry interaction in a triad, then reflect on what deepened understanding, what constrained it and one practice to improve.

Good questions do not arrive by accident. This is the question map we use to move a conversation from what the client wants, through exploring it, to actions and next steps. It is our own tool, and you keep it.

Source: ICA learning outcomes for IC-LSTN, International Certification Alliance, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 (licence). Titles quoted unaltered.

Your Trainer: Helen Meek

ICF-PCC · Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) · Certified Team Coach (CTC) · Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) · 18+ years Helen is an ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with over 18 years of experience working with individuals, teams and organisations on their road to agility. Her credentials include the Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) and Certified Team Coach (CTC) from Scrum Alliance, and the Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) credential from Kanban University. What sets Helen apart is that she is not just teaching coaching theory. She is a practising professional coach who works with real clients every day, with lived experience from organisations including ASOS, Merck and Cambridge University Press, and a genuine passion for helping people discover their own coaching stance.

Alternate trainer: John Barratt. John is a Founding Partner and Agile Coach at Agile Affinity, a Certified Scrum Trainer (CST) and Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) with a military background and named client results at IAG Loyalty, Maersk and Vodafone.

Benefits of Training with Agile Affinity

Get Certified Earn your IC-LSTN credential, an ICA Specialised Credential in Coaching.

Save on Future Courses Receive 20% off all future Agile Affinity certifications when you sign up for our newsletter.

Join the Community Access the Agile Affinity Discord and Scrum Event, the largest Scrum Alliance meetup in Europe, for ongoing peer support.

Part of a Programme Everything you learn counts towards Coaching Skills for Impact, with mentor coaching available through the programme.

Agile Affinity is a UK-based boutique agile coaching and training consultancy, established in 2019. We have trained over 1,000 practitioners and certify over 750 per year across Scrum Alliance and ICAgile® programmes and run some of the UK’s most active agile communities, including Scrum Event (the largest Scrum Alliance meetup in Europe), the Kanban Coaching Exchange, the Agile Coaching Exchange, and Agile Coach Camp UK. When you train with us, you are joining a community of practitioners, not just attending a class.

Take the Full Programme: Coaching Skills for Impact

Want the full route to ICP-COA? Coaching Skills for Impact brings the Core, all three Specialised Credentials, the Integration session and 10 hours of mentor coaching together in one programme. Programme price: £2,000 + VAT  |  €2,400  |  $2,650 USD See the Coaching Skills for Impact programme

Frequently Asked Questions

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ICP-COA, IC-COAC, IC-CHEB, IC-CHPS and IC-LSTN are credentials of the International Certification Alliance (ICA).

ICA is the International Certification Alliance.

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