A payment agreed in advance and released when a piece of work reaches an agreed end state, conditional on the outcome rather than on the contribution made along the way.
Because the condition is the end state rather than any measure of individual contribution, a completion bonus rewards being present when the work finishes. That makes it a reasonable retention device through a difficult tail and a weak motivator, since the distance between what somebody does in any given week and a payment months later is too long to change the week. The eligibility rule is where the design decision really sits: specialists and contractors often leave at handover, so a payment released at closure frequently misses the people who carried the hardest part. Naming it accurately as a retention payment, and recognising contribution separately on the day it happens, avoids the common failure where a team is told a longevity award was a performance one.
See also
The formal end of a piece of work, whether because it finished or because it was stopped early. In iterative delivery it is a decision rather than an arrival.
Acknowledgement of a contribution given by colleagues rather than awarded down a management line, usually through nomination or an open thank you.
The transfer of a delivered output to the people who will run it, understood as a transition period rather than a single date.
Where this comes up
One row per stakeholder, one column per engagement level, and two marks per row. The distance between the two marks is the only thing on the grid you can actually act on.
Three attributes, seven classes, one question: whose claim gets attention first. Hold all three and you are a definitive stakeholder, and definitive stakeholders do not wait.
A reward is set in advance and conditional. Recognition is retrospective, unexpected and free. Most project managers control the second and none of the first, which decides where the effort goes.