What is a 'translation brief'?

I've been editing the blog post a little, trying to make it more informative. If you look at Christiane Nord’s work, Translating as a Purposeful Activity, she attributes the term ‘brief’ to Janet Fraser, noting that other terms include ‘commission’ and ‘assignment’ (p. 29). It appears from her discussion that the idea has gradually shifted from a contract between a commissioner and the translator to a tool which accomplishes much more...educating the language community, organizing the work, deliniating the final translation in terms of kind of translation, purpose, etc., and, as with a contract, a way to public show the agreement of the stakeholders. And I seeing too much?